This is my first time on a forum of any kind. I am married to an amazing man who has stood by my side through many rough roads with depression.

Currently on Cymbalta, Remeron, and Xanax for depression vs major depression with axiety, diagnosed in 1992

My husband is a US Marine and therefore has been gone many times over our 20 year marriage. Currently he is away on an exercise and I became aware of some sad truths about myself and stepped over a line I thought I would never cross.

First off I have always questioned my husband loving me by asking outright and asking if we were okay and asking if he was gonna leave me. He has always answered my questions sometimes with exasperation but always answered. Two days ago I felt this enormous feeling of doom settling over me and of course the worst that could happen to me was he fell in love with someone else. I went into his email and read an email he had written to a coworker ...... the only thing I saw was I LOVE YOU. I was so hurt and so rejected and so angry that all my fears were now validated that I immediately picked up the phone and called him and demanded he tell me he was in love with her. He did not. Because he is not. The whole email was sorry she had broken off with a guy she was dating and that he was there to listen and care when she needed to talk. I knew all of this in my head but my emotions ran away from me.

Since this absence I realized how many times a day I look to him to say I LOVE YOU, yes we are fine, I am not going anywhere. Then the kicker came.......why the hell do I do this? because in my head I have already heard him say he does't love me, he isn't staying with me and we are not fine. My lack of trust in my emotions over read what he was saying and feeling. NO matter how many times he showed me he loved me or told me he loved me would have ever been enough because I have never thought he would stay....its be 20 YEARS.

So now he has reached his breaking point with me of accusing him of not loving me and wanting someone else, when it was I who thought he shouldn't love me and deserved someone else.

Now I have to change having that constant need to drag answers out of him that didn't matter in the first place cause my mind already had the answer.

My fears of not being lovable and not being able to have a happy marriage have caused me to now come very close to loosing the one thing I always feared of loosing.

He is waiting to see if I can change and accept love from him without question and it is hard. I am fighting a constant urge to call him and ask "Do you still love me?" DO you still have faith in us?" Again in my head I know this is true but my emotional voice is sabatoging what I need.

Any suggestions? I am working with a psychologist on a weekly basis. His first suggestion was to balance my life, make sure there are things I am doing besides just focussing on my doubts, the second was to have my husband NOT answer those questions if I ask he is to just say a random word and make me look at all his actions to see if I even needed to really ask that question.

Don't feel bad, if I would have read that, I would have felt the same way. Did you read deeper into the email to see what it said?

I agree with your therapist, you need to work on you and make sure that you don't need that constant reaffirmation of his love for you. You will get stronger and stronger with therapy and eventually you can face this thing head on and know what you want from there.

Unfortunatley this is a battle of 20 years in the making. The ability of changing is scaring me to death. I know I have to for my marriage to survive and I did read the rest of the message and know it was him just being a caring friend but the doubts that plague my mind took over and reacted instead. He is willing to see if I can change so I have to try but so far I am only coming up with questions that have no frickin answers for me yet.

This is a curvy bumpy road I have to travel and it is really difficult to navigate. Thank you for being there and being a willing ear.

Hi Stryteller2: Has your psychologist suggested areas of your life that you should start with? For example, you have not mentioned if you have children or wanted children, do you have a professional career that you feel fulfilled with? Are you satisfied with wherever you are at career wise? Do you have a large or enough of a circle of friends? How are your relationships with family members? Do you have any unresolved issues from your past? Do you have hobbies that you enjoy and keep yourself busy with.

Perhaps you could make a bulletin board of sorts with these categories and use them to explore yourself. Or perhaps you could start a journal where you could just free-write whatever you are thinking. Or you could look at Journals at your local bookstore. Some of them have different questions that you could respond to each day. Ultimately, these questions will make you look inside yourself.

Good luck with your quest and feel free to check in whenever you need help.

I started a journal about a week ago. So far it is filled with many questions I have no answers to.

Career wise I am going to school for accounting and haven't put as much effort into it as I should.

I am on a small USMC base in Japan so my friend circle is really small, we live in a fishbowl society.

I do have 3 children 19, 14 and 11, they help to keep me grounded and make sure there is enough stress added to my life.

I guess right now I don't have the faith in the love my family gives me. I feel unworthy of their love. Not sure how to get to where I love myself. Honestly I believe that all of them would be better without me in their lives, they do not agree but the emotional side of me doesn't buy in to their belief.

I know I need to get to where I believe I am worth them loving especially my husband, but it is really really difficult.